You May Be Gone, But You're Never Over
by Get Real Or Die
Summary: I don't think Tom Hagen being born as a girl would help anyone, really. Except for how it might have.


Summary: I don't think Tom Hagen being born as a girl would help anyone, really. Except for how it might've. Movieverse bitches. Also? Title's from an Eminem song

Prologue

When Connie comes and gets her with a grave look on her face, she's honestly not surprised but since she can't really imagine what there's left to talk about, yeah she kinda is.

Eliza's been out of the 'perfume business' since Fredo had become Consigliere and she had become a lawyer. Sure she did a couple of jobs here and there, kept her 'orphan messenger system' running as smooth as she could, and gave Fredo advice but he and Danny had been in charge of operations of their thing until Danny died. Fredo always kept her aprised of how things were working in The Kitchen, which she had always appreciated, and she knows she coulda asked him about Pop's business but she never had. And she had gotten contacts the other week about the few legal aspects of what they did having been liquidated and set up in trust funds for Albert 'Frederico' Neri and Gregory 'Eli' Franks, which she had signed with a sigh of relief that it was all finally over. The three of them had started what still feels like everything together and then there had been two and now there was just one. Fredo's funeral was three weeks ago and it feels like it was yesterday.

Her time since then has been mostly occupied with not slitting her throat with Al's razor blade when she sees it every morning. Eliza knows she has responsibilities she can't afford to shake no matter how much she wants to. Deanna's mostly under control now; she's gotten her dried out though she had to beat her half to death to get her to do it. There's something soothing about hitting another woman that she doesn't question especially not when it comes to Deanna who always rubbed her the wrong way anyway, mostly because it had bugged the ever-loving hell out of Eliza to see her get drunk and feel that same wanting she's been feeling for 12 years now. But Fredo had asked her to take care of her and she had said she would and since she can count on her fingers how many times she's lied to Fredo's face and still have enough fingers left over to flip two people off at once, she wasn't going to deny him what had been his dying wish essentially.

Then there's Albie. He's the main reason she gets out of bed in the morning. She drives him to and from school and they sing along with the radio even though she knows her voice is horrible. Its always been horrible and what happened the year she turned 19 didn't exactly turn her vocal chords into Johnny's pipes, now did it? She takes the teasing from her son in stride because she's never really minded people laughing at her when the situation warranted it; it was when people were making fun at her when she was dead serious that she used to have a problem with. Nowadays she doesn't have a problem with much.

He's going out for track in the spring and she's so proud of the little snot that she could burst. They race sometimes and yeah he beats her about 6 times out of ten but she still feels that crushing superiority she's always relished when she beats people at footraces the other 40% of the time. And Albie's face is hilarious because she's old but she's still one of the fastest things on legs around.

She's sitting in the boathouse (in the dark, like she likes it) when Connie tells her Michael wants to see her in the study. Connie sweeps out without even seeing the sarcastic salute that Eliza sends at her back. The most surprising thing about her family dying left and right is when Mama Corleone died, Connie had stuck around to start playing Michael's perfect little toy soldier. That don't mean Connie talks to her though; this is the first time she's spoken to her since Fredo's funeral and that was just courtesy.

She wonders what Michael wants but she knows or thinks she knows at least. Michael's an unpredictable son-of-a-bitch and she can't forget that though she kinda wants to forget a man named Micheal Corleone exists these days. She wants to be anywhere but here (anywhere but Nevada really) but she's not going to try to run from Michael.

No matter how many times she beats Albie, she knows that she's only so fucking fast. And yeah maybe she could hide but probably not. She's not leaving her son in either case and she's not stupid enough to try and take him away from Al. He had a wife run out on him before and she's never deluded herself into thinking that Al felt the depth of emotion that he had felt for the former Mrs. Neri.

But she hasn't been able to stand looking in his eyes since he killed Fredo. She wouldn't let him touch her either except for the fact that as nauseous as it made her, it frustrated Al something fierce when she'd just lay there and took it the one time he tried something on her since the day Fredo died. When he'd asked her what she was doing (or not doing, as the case may be), she had replied with as much venom as she could muster, which was alot surprisingly considering how fucking numb she feels usually, that she wasn't drowning so she was doing pretty fucking alright, wasn't she? He hadn't tried to touch her since.

The walk to the study feels long and as if it takes an instant at the same time. She's been doing that alot when she's not concentrating on something recently; losing gaps of time that is. She cooked a roast the other night and when the timer had went off, it had been an hour and a half later but it had felt like an aeon. One night she had been brushing her teeth before bed and it felt like it took forever even though when she checked her watch it had only been a few minutes.

She spends alot of time outside even though it hasn't gotten any warmer recently. Its just that she can't stand this house and the mausoleum feel that encapsulates the whole place. The children's playroom is the only room she really and truly feels comfortable in anymore and she's just grateful that the kids always want to play with her and always seem tickled pink when she knocks and asks if she can come in. She's learned through her life that there are reasons people didn't treat kids like they were adults and though she chooses to ignore some of those reasons with Albie, she doesn't treat Michael, Connie, or Sonny's kids with anything but common courtesy and an absentminded fondness that has, admittedly, gotten more absentminded since her own son's been born.

Eliza knocks on the door three times hard, the thud of her wedding rings jarring her knuckles unpleasantly. Even though she still has no idea what the hell she's doing being married to Al Neri, she's never forgotten that she was (didn't think to try) and she's never taken either of the rings off. There were times in the past when she wondered if there was an inscription on the inside but she's never checked and there's no reason to anymore. She stares at the grain of the wood on the door concentrating fully on the conversation that's going to take place.

When it swings open and there's Sonny right in front of her, she keeps herself from taking two giant steps back with what's colossal effort. His face is granite and he seems to be looking at her like he's never seen her before and she thinks 'don't look at me' like she always does but when he steps aside she doesn't hesitate to step in the room. There's Michael, Al, Rocco, and with Sonny here (who never did spend much time in Nevada and had only been back for Fredo's funeral) she can figure out what this is about. Rocco leaves the room (but not before giving her a long hard stare she returns fiercely enough that it seems to surprise him but she can do that now that...well, she can) and its just a tribunal.

She's spacially aware of Sonny even as she takes a seat, THE seat diretly in front of Michael's desk. There are two small boxes stacked on one side of it and though she's curious what's inside of them, she's not really. She's more interested in the bottle of liquor in the carafe on the other side of the desk but she always feels that ping when there's good liquor in the room and Michael would drink nothing but some of the best, she figures. But that's not why she's here and she's lived with wanting a drink for a very long time and she will continue to do so until she dies. Eliza does wish she had a joint or something because even though she thinks the best thing right now is to be as clear-headed as she can be, it doesn't take a genuis to guess that this was gonna be the opposite of fun.

She looks at the three of them (well, their foreheads because eye contact? Way too 1950's for a woman as modern as she) facing her and says, quite simply, "What's up Mike?" And its not a good impression of Bugs at all but you gotta get these things out of you while you can. No one's laughing, not even her, but she had always thought the key to life was amusing yourself, even if that was the extent to which she could feel amused. If Bugs Bunny had been around when she was a kid, she'd definitely be a different person today and there were few times when you got to open the salvo on what was gonna be your judge, jury, and executioner.

Al doesn't look blank like he usually does and...well she can't tell what the look on his face was, Sonny's face has that same look of interest that she's long since stopped wanting him to look at her with, but Michael looks furious. She could be wrong because he always seems furious to her and that's always scared her less than she thought it should've. Not even six months ago, he had been screaming in her face, shaking her, trying to get her to tell him where Fredo was hiding. But as scared as she'd been of him (darkhorse, her mind whispers) it had hurt more than anything knowing that even if she would've ever told him, she couldn't anyway. She hadn't been able to believe that the same way Michael hadn't. It had taken her flinching away from him quite spectacularly to get him to take her at her word and she doesn't even think that's what got him to finally stop harassing her but who knows?

Michael doesn't seem amused and she always wants to tell him to lighten up a little. As a kid, Michael smiled alot cause he'd been a happy kid; the kind of happy kid that made you feel happy just being around them. Now looking at him just makes her feel depressed and not want to be looking at him.

Michael doesn't look mad anymore and that's how she knows he's the maddest he's probably gonna get because when he starts speaking, its in that quiet low voice he gets sometimes. When Mike's being the most civilized person in the room every chromosome inside of her screams 'get the fuck out of the way!' "You think this is funny?"

She looks at him, really looks at him and she knows it shocks him when she meets his eyes because she hasn't done it in...well, she just hasn't. The smile on her face feels weird and it jolts her to realise that though she's laughed at the kids' antics or some news out of the Middle East on the radio, she hasn't smiled since Mama's funeral.

When she speaks the sound of her voice makes feel like she's talking to her little brother and its a way she's never spoken to Michael himself but she kinda finds her brothers where she finds them so she's used it before. "Michael, I'm pretty sure I'm not gonna be living by this time tommorrow and the one thing that's nagging at me is that Albie won our last footrace. So yeah, I kinda think this is funny. But if its worth anything, what I'm really finding funny? The end of my life feeling like a game of Clue and I'm wondering who does what to me where." She points at each of them in turn, grin firmly in place. "Will it be Micheal in the study with the brandy decanter? Al on the lake with his police-issued .38 revolver? Sonny in the kitchen with piano wire? Rocco at the resturant with the poison."

And though she's talking about her own death here, she doesn't think Michael's cruel enough to starve her to death so she's better than where she was the first time she ever faced death. At least that's something. "Come on Michael; you get to kill or order someone killed and for what's probably the first time in your life you're not gonna have to square with anyone about it. Its got me all aflutter." She bats her eyelashes at Michael and figures why not?

She knows like she knows her whole name (Eliza fucking Hagen) that she's not scared to die and she's not scared of Michael except for when he was shouting in her face like a maniac and that's reflex left over from Martin Hagen mostly. She's not gonna let him smile in her face like he did with Fredo and plan her murder behind her back. Fredo wasn't stupid but she knows Michael thinks he was deep down inside if he thought that he had fallen for that farce at Mama's funeral. And despite the fact that she helped get him off of the Senate Committee's shit list not even 4 months ago, if she doesn't make it painfully clear to him that she's not?

Micheal's gonna have her offed thinking she was too dumb, too trusting to suspect 'Mikey' of anything.

Sonny looks aghast. "Jesus Christ Lizzie, none of us are gonna kill you."

She snorts in the back of her throat (which is quite honestly, the most unladylike noise she can think to make at the moment) as she crosses her legs and gets comfortable. "Yeah and I'm sure you got a fence you need me to help you paint somewhere too." Sonny looks confused but Michael gets the reference, guessing by the look on his face. "Look I don't know what you want me to say to any of you. Matter of fact, I don't have anything to say to any of you in paticular but since I don't think that's gonna fly, why don't you ask me what you want to ask me and I'll tell it to you if I can."

And its Micheal that's smiling now and its not the happy kid smile she was thinking about earlier either. "Really Lizzie? Because according to Fredo, you're the best actor in the world."

She's smiling too now and it definitely ain't her happy-kid smile mostly because she didn't have one. "Second best Micheal. The Oscar goes to you, Mr. Corleone. You wanna talk acting? For one second there, I actually thought you were gonna let Fredo live. So bra-fucking-vo." She's clapping sarcastically before sighing because yeah she's pissed but she's not surprised, except for the fact that after all these years, its the Corleone men in the family that can still break her heart over and over and over agian. "I never lied to you Micheal. If you've been talking to Fredo, you gotta know that I've never lied to you. Not to any of you." She shrugs, frowning as she thinks back. "I coulda if any of you ever asked the right questions but depending on what it was about, I probably wouldn't have anyway. But if you're not gonna believe a damn thing I say in either case, what's the point? What's done is done and what's dead is dead."

Micheal's face is soft and Sonny's looking at him like he's never seen him before and she idly wonders if Sonny honestly had thought Fredo really had drowned. "I know you think what's done is done but I'm sitting here realizing I don't know my own brother and I don't know you and it irritates me." He reaches to the side into the box and he's tossed the black book to her and she feels kinda foolish for how she reacts after but she doesn't think its too much of a stretch to think Micheal coulda been trying to throw a grenade or something at her.

Not even five seconds after Micheal's tossed the book to her, she's already kicked it back into his hands. She's dead serious when she meets his surprised eyes. "You wanna do me in? Get in my face and do it. Don't try to poison me Micheal. You think I don't know what happens if I touch that book?"

Sonny's shaking his head at her before grabbing the book from Micheal and thumbing through it rapidly before she takes it from his hands when he gives it to her, holding it gingerly with her fingertips. "Have you always been this goddamn paranoid?"

She shrugs, the book staring back at her from where she sat it on her lap as she rubs her fingertips clean on the chair fabric. "If I think someone's trying to kill me then yes I am. Very." It's not exploding or squirting noxious fluids in her face so she pokes at the black book again. "What is this?"

Micheal's studying her intently and she hasn't felt this examined in a while. She opens the book at random and the first thing she sees at the top of the page are the words: May 9, 1942 Me and Lizzie got to the bakery early that morning... The words are in Fredo's writing and she feels a grin spread across her face before she whips her face to the left already speaking unthinkingly, making fun of someone who'll never be to her left again. "You write a diary Freddie? You're such a..." She looks back down at the words so suddenly she feel like her head's swimming, but its the words on the pages in front of her and she kind of wants to cry but she doesn't even if she don't think there's anyone left to not give the satisfaction to.

She whispers, thinking that if any of them read what's in those books then there really is nothing to hide and it doesn't really seem likely that she'd be brought in here to be given momentos of Fredo's. Once upon a time the idea of not hiding the things they've done, the lengths she'd gone to with Fredo always along for the ride had seemed appealing; now it just seems like something that should have been left far in the past. "I saw him writing in a book like this sometimes but he'd forget stuff and I just figured he started writing it down. Guess that just goes to show you huh." She doesn't look up. "When'd he start writing it?"

Micheal answers her and she must look pitiful to have Micheal talk at her like that. " '32."

She makes a low note of acknowledgement as she thinks about how much Micheal loves to prove everyone wrong. Can't gun down a police captain in public? Micheal Corleone did. Couldn't order the deaths of the heads of the Five Families? Micheal sure as hell can. No way on this Earth could anyone make Eliza Hagen feel like she didn't know Fredo Corleone as well as she could? Ta-da!

She thought that there was nothing left to be afraid of. She doesn't know why she always forgets that there's always something even if it wasn't the things people thought you should be afraid of. She's terrified of reading Fredo's words and finding out that like everyone else in the entire fucking world, Fredo wasn't who she thought he was. She doesn't want to read this but if Micheal gives her a chance to, she knows she will.

She looks up and thinks, okay then. That's where I'm at. "So I'm guessing you read these? And my old files too probably, yeah." All three of them just look back at her and she thinks about the things she's done (the things that had been done to her) and how Fredo knew or could guess every last one of them. Cause all Fredo ever had to do was ask her for something and if she could, she'd give it to him. After they had figured Micheal was gonna kill him (and even then they hadn't been 100% sure) it had been full disclosure on both of their sides. And the only difference is? She's never written anything down cause every word that's ever fell between them feels like its been etched into her brain. He's the one person she's felt in her entire life who ever completely, fully understood her and if that's splashed across these pages? There's even less of an ability to run than she thought.

She fingers the book again and makes a retraction. "I stand corrected. I don't think this is funny at all."

AN: First Godfather fic. IDEK except for how even though Fredo still dies, I wanted him to have come out on top for once.


End file.
